DDoS attacks are up but are the hackers on holiday?

Complex DDoS attacks (distributed denial of service) are growing in popularity, but a noticeable drop in the number of attacks overall leaves us wondering where the hackers have gone.

The first quarter of 2017 appears comparatively quiet to the previous cyber storms the world has weathered, the highest number of attacks in Q1 hit on the 18th of February and were numbered at 994.

The longest DDoS attack in Q1 2017 last only 120 hours, this figure carries little fear with it when compared to the 292 hour long attack marked as the highest in the previous quarter. Attacks have lasted up to 320 hours, as recorded in Q3 2015.

These results were gathered by Kaspersky Lab, and within the research it is also made clear that the number of encryption-based attacks grew considerably, while no amplification-type attacks were noted within the period of reporting.

In Q1 2017 DDoS attacks against resources across 72 countries were recorded by the Kaspersky DDoS Intelligence system. The UK and the Netherlands took the places of France and Japan in the top 10 countries hit by the most DDoS attacks.

Kirill Ilganaev, Head of Kaspersky DDoS Protection at Kaspersky Lab said: “There’s typically a pronounced decline in the number of DDoS attacks at the beginning of the year, and this trend has continued now for five years. This may be due to cybercriminals or their clients taking a break. However, despite this now familiar downturn, we still recorded more attacks between January and March of this year than we did in the first quarter of 2016, which confirms the conclusion that the overall number of DDoS attacks is growing. So now is not the time to let your guard down; rather, it’s better to take care of your protection before the cybercriminals get back to their usual work routine,”